If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or you can register for email updates. Thanks for visiting!

• Wordpress for iPhone - It turns out that my recent review of WordPress for iPhone was the four-hundredth post on ZX81.org.uk. Time for a small celebration!
• Font Conference - Typeface adventures…
• Simon Pegg's Geek Roots Show in Spaced - I'm no longer a twenty-something, but I still love Spaced. Now available in the US.

The problem with trying to sell a lacklustre product to a disinterested audience is that even the best marketing that money can buy can’t help. Fortunately Microsoft had the wisdom not to throw good money after bad and decided to push Vista with their “The Wow Starts Now” campaign, one that neatly matched the quality of the initial operating system release. Very clever.

But recently Microsoft have decided that things have improved and that it’s worth marketing their flagship product with a little more gusto. I decided that I would help and try to think of a few new tag lines.

I offer these for free in the hope that Microsoft will use them.

• Windows Vista: it’s really not that bad.
• Windows Vista: because John Hodgman¹ is cool.
• Windows Vista: because our share price is dropping and we need the cash.
• Windows Vista: because (almost) every penny you spend ends up in Gates’ charitable foundation (honest).
• Windows Vista: because you like blue.
• Windows Vista: because useful new features are for wusses.
• Windows Vista: buy it or the cute kitty gets it.
• Windows Vista: because Justin Long² is just too smug.
• Windows Vista: because other operating systems fund terrorism.
• Windows Vista: we have a monopoly and you’re going to end up buying it anyway, may as well be now.

Can you think of any more? With the whole Yahoo thing, attention from the EU competition commission and the Xbox 360 dropping from its number one spot despite its year head-start, Microsoft need all the help that they can get at the moment. Please give generously.

1. That’s David Mitchell for British readers.↩
2. Or Robert Webb if you’re in the UK.↩

So B “tagged” me on her recent blog of our recent holiday in Tuscany. I have not quite got my act together for the full photographic and textual story of the trip just yet, but I couldn’t let a couple of her comments pass…

Firstly, and least controversially, she suggested that you ask me for my picture of the rain on the car windscreen. I am happy to oblige:

You can’t quite make out how high the rain-drops were bouncing off the car bonnet but you get the idea, and it’s not too shabby for a camera phone picture.

The second is me lying upside down on a well in Poppi, on the 22nd with the caption “I’m sure S can explain this.” What can I say other than I suffer for my art?

The result is the following picture:

It’s not the best picture that I’ve ever taken, but I’ve certainly done far worse.

Stay tuned for the full blog entry.

• Senator to ISPs: "Think twice" about 'Net neutrality… or else - It's encouraging that some politicians understand the issues of net neutrality. Let's hope that there are also tech-savvy MPs here in the UK.
• Peep Show for free! - If you're in the UK this is a must-have download: the first episode of the new series of Peep Show. It's perhaps the best comedy show on British TV at the moment. Highly recommended.
• The Free Web: 15 Years Old Today - The subject line says it all! Where would we be without the web?

• London teen orders 'cab, innit' - Barely believable but very funny!
• Billy Bragg: Why should songwriters starve so others get rich? - "I never bought that Home Taping Is Killing Music shit in the 1980s that the record companies tried to lay on us. In fact I printed on the front of my fourth album that Capitalism is Killing Music. And that's what's happening now. The powerful start-ups a
• What Idiot Wrote These Ten Commandments? - "Where's the stuff we can use? Where's 'No pushing'? Or 'Bag your leaves so they don't blow around in your neighbor's yard?' And don't even get me started on right-of-way. Didn't they have real problems back in Bible days?"

I hesitate to say that it happens often, but people do sometimes talk about special abilities or super-powers, even if it’s phrased as a “party trick.” Today I realised that I have what might best be described as a special inability.

I took a quick wander into Wimbledon, the nearest town to where I live. It looked gloomy outside and the weather the previous day had been windy and a little chilly. I decided to wear a jumper and my jacket. It didn’t take me long to realise that I had misjudged the weather and that I was very warm.

This happens to me all the time.

It’s a skill that I’ve never had. I often go out only to find that I dramatically underestimated the weather. This time I dressed for arctic conditions but I can’t count the number of times that I’ve misjudged the situation the other way around.

Does this happen to everyone? In town no-one else seemed to have been caught out. Many were dressed in small jackets or jumpers — but not both — a few were in t-shirts.

How do they know?